Many years ago Riccardo Muti recorded
all the Schubert symphonies with the Vienna Philharmonic. The recordings were
widely praised for their elegance and warmth. Now Muti has brought his
authority in Schubert to Chicago. Over the course of the 2013-2014 season he
has been presenting all eight symphonies. There are other symphonic movements
and unfinished fragments but Muti has chosen to ignore them and concentrate on
the acknowledged canon. This latest installment in the Chicago series showed
that Muti’s approach has not changed much over the years in spite of major
developments in our understanding of performance practice in Schubert’s time.

Muti is not playing the symphonies in
chronological order. The “Great” C major, so-called because of its length and
power, has already been played. The “Little” C major is a much slighter work
and often ignored by conductors because it suffers by comparison. In its own
right, however, it is modestly grand and contains its share of inspired
Schubertian melody. Muti used a reduced orchestra and made sure that the
essential classical restraint of the work was honored. This meant that the fortes were never pushed, tempos were
moderate, vibrato was limited and phrasing tasteful rather than romantically
inflated.

For some listeners the overall effect
might have been boring. To my ears, however, what Muti and his players did was
prepared with the most careful attention to detail and beautiful in every
respect. I was struck by Muti’s handling of the softer passages. There is a lot
of repetition in Schubert and orchestral players tend to play this music at a mezzo forte volume from beginning to end
– and this is where the boredom sets in. Muti demanded soft playing from the
strings – often giving the effect of a musical whisper - that forced the
listener to pay attention.

Muti’s approach to the very early
Symphony No. 1 was similar, except that he managed to breathe more life into
this slight work than I had ever heard before. The “inside” parts in the slow
movement were a revelation. While attention is rightly focused on the melodies
– usually in the winds – Muti brought out other lines in the music that changed
the mood, often making the overall effect a little darker. But the conductor
did this in a way that was not the least bit exaggerated; the conductor’s art
indeed!

The last movement is by its very nature
exuberant but Muti made the music even more joyous. Here the secret was
crispness of articulation. But Muti also showed real mastery in balancing the
classical orchestra. The Schubert First is scored for strings, a handful of
winds and trumpets and timpani. The two trumpets can easily drown out the small
string section. But there are moments when they need to be heard, at something
close to full power. Muti got it exactly right. The trumpets mostly blended
into the orchestral texture but in the final movement when their moments came
they burst forth splendidly. This was no accident and it needs to be judged
with great care. Fine playing and masterly conducting. I’ll have more to say
about Muti and historically-informed performance practice in the next two
articles in this series.

Photo by Todd Rosenberg

The other work on the program was
Mozart’s Bassoon Concerto, undoubtedly the finest concerto yet written for the
instrument. It is always a pleasure to hear it but this was a special occasion.
David McGill (photo: left), a beloved Chicago Symphony principal player was retiring from the
orchestra to take a full-time teaching position at Northwestern University. McGill
has held principal positions in the Toronto Symphony and the Cleveland
Orchestra but Chicago was the place he stayed for the longest time – seventeen
years - and it was in Chicago that he chose to end his orchestral career.

McGill is one of the finest bassoonists
to ever take up the instrument and on the evidence of this concerto performance
he is going out at the very top of his game. McGill is the kind of bassoonist
who makes the opening of le sacre du
printemps sound angelic rather than strangled. In the Mozart, no matter
what register he was playing in, the sound was beautiful and totally under
control. The Mozart Bassoon Concerto is in no sense a “technical” piece and yet
the composer made sure that only the finest players could meet the challenges
he set them.

McGill composed his own cadenzas for
this performance and there were stylistically appropriate and just the right
length. Muti and McGill’s CSO colleagues accompanied with perfection. The
ovation at the end, from audience members and players alike was extraordinarily
heartfelt.

In the next article in this series on “Muti
in Chicago,” I will review the last Muti-CSO concert of the current season,
devoted to Schubert and Mahler. The final article will offer an account of the
remarkable meeting held recently in Chicago between Muti and members of the
Music Critic’s Association of North America (MCANA).

Sunday, 22 June 2014

This Week in Montreal: June 23 to 29

Concerts Populaires Celebrates 50 Years

In June 1964, at the initiative of mayor Jean Drapeau, the first event of the Concerts Populaires took place: a homage to Vienna with the Orchestre Symphonique de Montréal under the baton of Alexander Brott. This year, the Orchestre Métropolitain, directed by Julian Kuerti, will performs an integral reproduction of the 1964 inaugural concert with soprano Aline Kutan. Six concerts will be presented between June 26 and July 31 at the Centre Pierre-Charbonneau, Thursdays at 7:30 pm. www.concertspopulairesdemontreal.com - Renée Banville

Sponsored Links

About

La Scena Musicale is a monthly Canadian classical, opera, jazz and world music magazine published in English and French by La Scène musicale/The Music Scene, a non-profit charity dedicated to the promotion of music and the arts. La Scena Musicale's award-winning website SCENA.org has been a world leader of classical music and arts news since 1996. The LSM Blog is the place for commentary and news on music and the arts in Canada and around the world. Publisher: Wah Keung Chan; ISSN 1925-9700